The Mechanics of Science, Popularly Illustrated

by Marty Schnapp

Timmy Wilson gave his brother an exasperated look. People sometimes said that twins shared a brain, but Timmy often thought he had the whole thing and Tommy only had visiting rights.

“Look, genius,” he said. “We’re not messing around with anything, we’re just borrowing some oil. Dad said he wanted us to take care of our new bikes, didn’t he? Anyway, he’s at work and Mom’s out shopping, so who’s gonna know?”

They kept rummaging around the workshop and finally spotted the oilcan on the top shelf of a metal cabinet.

“I can’t reach it,” Timmy said. “I need something to stand on.”

“How about this?” Tommy pointed to a large wooden tool chest on the bottom shelf. They slid it out, and a pile of magazines stacked behind it spilled out on the floor.

“Hey, what’s this?” Tommy picked up the top one.

The Mechanics of Science, Popularly Illustrated was emblazoned on the cover, along with the title of the featured article, “Build a Cold Fusion Reactor with Items Found in Your Kitchen!” The cover illustration showed a typical family of four wearing thick goggles and radiation suits, gathered around a kitchen table. On the table was a Rubberware bowl with heavy electrical cables attached to large terminals on its lid. The bowl had a peculiar greenish glow. Nearby, the family cat, unprotected, had a similar glow.

“Wow, check that out!”

“That’s cool,” said Timmy, “but look at this one!”

The next magazine proclaimed, “Better Living Through Genetic Mutation.” Here a husband and wife relaxed around a pool while being served drinks by a simian creature in butler’s livery. Above them, a young boy caught an impossible high-fly courtesy of a pair of leathery wings sprouting from his shoulder blades.

“Neat,” Tommy said, “but this one’s even better.”

“Time Travel: New Breakthroughs Make It Feasible.” The cover reproduced John Trumbull’s painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, except that amid the Founding Fathers was a man in a plaid suit wearing horn-rimmed glasses, signing with a ballpoint pen.

“No, no! This one!” Timmy exclaimed, “We gotta do this one.”

“Teleportation! Beat the High Cost of Commuting!” A man in a business suit, just donning his hat, was kissing his wife good-bye as he stepped out the door. The clock behind him read eight fifty-nine. His foot, however, was stepping directly into his office where the time clock read nine o’clock sharp.

“Yeah!” Tommy said. “We could quit taking the stupid school bus.”

“Who cares about the bus? We could watch all of Captain Incendio and the Pyronauts after school and still be on time for ball practice.”

But a quick look at the article dashed their hopes.

“We have to either have a large supply of liquid nitrogen, or convert the refrigerator to a cryogenics plant,” Timmy said. “Either way, we wouldn’t be done by the time Mom gets home. And you know what she’d say about the refrigerator.”

“Well, how about this?” Tommy asked.

“Build an Inter-Dimensional Portal.” Below, it added, “Open a Million Doorways to the Unknown.” The cover of this magazine was different from the others. It was completely black, with the silhouette of a man standing in the bright light of an open doorway. He was surrounded by dozens of question marks. There was something intriguing, perhaps even a little creepy about it; they agreed on the project at once. They decided to use the doorway between the kitchen and dining room as the portal, and set to work.

It was careful, exacting work, and it took nearly an hour. They drove nails at specific points around the doorframe. They couldn’t find any rubber grommets in the garage, so they drove the nails through Oatsy-Os cereal, which would act as insulators. Then they strung fine copper wire around the insulated nails, following a pattern in the magazine. The wires went back and forth across the doorway, passing over and under each other very closely, but without touching. Finally, they connected the ends of the wires to their National Flyer train transformer. Then they stood back to appraise their work.

“It looks just like the picture in the magazine,” Tommy said. “So, how do we start?”

“Well, it says to turn the transformer on first, then start the music. You got it?”

Tommy produced a 45 rpm record. “It was in a sleeve in the back of the magazine.”

“Wait a minute,” Timmy said. “There’s something else here.” He began to read.

“Inter–dimensional travelers be advised! There is no way to determine into which dimension your portal may open. As there are countless possibilities, and the connections are randomly made, it is imperative that you stabilize your portal once it opens. It may close anytime after the music ends, and it is unlikely that you will ever reconnect to the same dimension once it does. To stabilize the portal, you must…” The bottom of the page with the rest of the article was missing.

“What the heck?” Timmy asked.

He turned the page to find a full-page advertisement for something called The Charles Titan Body Building System. It featured an ink drawing of a bully who was kicking sand into the face of a wimp, while the wimp’s girlfriend looked on with thinly veiled contempt. “Never be humiliated again,” declared the text. “Build your body the Charles Titan way!” The mail-in coupon on the bottom of the page had been cut out.

The boys looked at each other.

“Dad?” asked Tommy incredulously.

“Let’s hope there was a money-back guarantee,” grinned Timmy.

“So, what do we do?”

“After all that work? I say we turn it on. It’s not like we have to go through it, right?”

With that, he turned on the transformer. Tommy put the record on the record player and started playing the music, Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero”.

At first, nothing happened. Then, as the music began to build, the wires began to vibrate sympathetically. Short lengths, long lengths, all began vibrating at different frequencies, responding to the complex harmonies in the music. And as they vibrated, they began to short-circuit each other, causing little electric sparks. A few appeared at first, and then more and more, until it looked like someone had opened a jar full of fireflies in the doorway.

And then suddenly, the copper wire disappeared. The nails were still there, along with their cereal insulators, but the wire was gone. They could see quite clearly into the dining room.

“What happened?” Timmy asked. “Where’d the wire go?”

Tommy, who was standing closest to the doorway, stretched out his hand to touch where the wire had been. With a crackling noise, his fingers disappeared.

“Whoa!” He jerked his hand back and held it in front of his face. His fingers were still there, all intact. He wiggled them to make sure. Then he grinned at Timmy. “Watch this.” He stuck his arm into the doorway up to his elbow. It vanished.

He pulled it back out again and waved it triumphantly. “It tingles a bit where the wire used to be,” he said. “Otherwise, no problems. Maybe I should try sticking my head in next.”

At that moment there was a crackling noise behind him, and a man stepped through the portal. He wore a shiny orange and yellow costume with red boots. His red helmet was adorned with stylized flames projecting from the sides, and the letter “I” was emblazoned on his chest.

“Captain Incendio!” The boys shouted together.

With his strong chin jutting proudly forward and his keen eyes gazing into the distance, he replied, “Yes, it is I, Captain Incendio!” Then he noticed the boys and frowned and said, “Who are you?”

“I’m Timmy Wilson, and this is my brother Tommy.”

“Am I to understand that you built this inter-dimensional portal?”

“Yes, sir,” Tommy replied. “ We found the plans in a magazine.”

“Hmm. You know, I could use lads of your stripe on my ship, the Inferno. What say you? Are you ready to become Pyronauts?”

The boys saluted and cried together, “Pyronauts, ignite!” And with a whoop they plunged through the portal. With their passing, there was a loud hum and a pop and the copper wire reappeared.

A short time later, Mrs. Wilson entered the kitchen with a bag of groceries in each arm. “Timmy!” she called. “Tommy! Come give me a hand with the groceries.” The only response she got was the quiet hum of the train transformer.

An hour after that, Mr. Wilson returned home from the office and was confronted by his angry wife. She was clutching a copy of The Mechanics of Science, and behind her he could see the doorway woven with copper wire.

“Oh no, not again,” he groaned. “What was it this time?”

“Inter-dimensional portal!” she yelled, throwing the magazine at him. “I thought you got rid of those magazines after Susie teleported herself to who-knows-where.”

“I meant to, dear, but then we had to go shopping for a new refrigerator and it just slipped my mind. Besides, the boys shouldn’t have found them. I had them stashed away pretty well…” He broke off with a sheepish grin.

“Stashed away is right! You kept them so you could sneak back to visit that eighteenth century trollop!”

“Oh, don’t start with that again!” he complained. “For crying out loud, I stepped out of line one time, and it was two hundred and fifty years ago! Anyway, I told you she meant nothing to me.”

“It happened just years ago, not centuries!” she cried. “And I’m supposed to believe that she meant nothing to you? I’m probably the only woman in the world whose husband is his own great, great, great grandfather.”

Sniffling, Mrs. Wilson wandered into the family room at the back of the house and turned on the television before flopping down on the sofa. She hoped it would discourage further discussion with her husband, who had followed her, still protesting his innocence. Well, he could go back to his colonial floozy for all she cared; she just wanted to see her boys again.

Organ music swelled from the TV, announcing the start of a children’s program. She sobbed when she recognized that it was the theme song of her sons’ favorite program and rose to turn it off. Just then, two masked figures raced across the screen, stopped, and looked directly at her.

“It’s great,” added Tommy, “except that we still have to be in bed by nine o’clock, and he makes us eat our vegetables.” He made a face.

An imposing figure with a jutting chin stepped into view.

“Flint! Tinder!” he cried. “The Pestulars are attacking the planet Tragon! We must away!”

“Okay, Captain! We were just talking to our mom and dad.”

Captain Incendio peered about the television screen until he saw them.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “So I see. These are fine lads, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. They are a splendid addition to the crew of the Inferno. And never fear, I make certain that they wash behind their ears.” Ruffling the boys’ hair, he said, “Hurry now lads, the Pestulars wait for no man.”

“Right away, Captain!” Tommy said. “We gotta go, Mom and Dad. See you tomorrow, same time, same channel.”

The boys started off the screen when Timmy stopped suddenly.

“Oh, Mom, I almost forgot,” he said. “We ran into Susie. It seems that she accidentally teleported herself to one of the moons of Jupiter. She said to tell you not to worry, that she’s okay, and she wants you to know that she’s sorry about the refrigerator.”